BM Hongmoon Skill Priorities?

[Asura777]

I got Lightning strike (Zen bean) a while ago, and have been saving up for hongmoon tome 2, which I was told is block, but recently I've noticed lightning strike 2 is pretty op in pvp, any suggestions for hongmoon skills I should prioritize getting?

[Avalyn]

Well half of the reason for this priority is that the skills are cheaper and easier to get, but it still is a good order anyways

 

Lightning Draw > HM block > HM Z*

 

*Only get HM Z if you are serious about PvP. If you are loaded with money (obviously you're not if you're using zen bean HM) and do extremely serious PvE then by all means go for it, but the money for offals can pay for several gear upgrades on its own if you're not max gear already. And by max gear I mean legit super whale level.

 

Zen bean searing slash is useless before elemental damage boosts come in and for anyone else reading you should never use it unless you are too poor for the HM lightning draw and need a temporary substitute. But even right now it is extremely cheap especially right after trove so there is almost no reason not to have it. In PvE even if you are in fire build you should use the lightning pentagram (S2 HM). I literally see people using the Searing Slash just because the rest of their build is fire and they never actually bothered to think about it. In PvP you use the S1 HM.  

 

 

LB RB are trash even in PvE, do not listen to anyone who tells you to get it. You have enough ways to enter draw stance without conflagration flash unless you end up doing a bunch of iframing mechanics in a row which almost never happens. In both lightning build and fire build you want to stay in draw stance as much as possible to do your DPS. Fire build pretty much never runs out of chi so the only time you go to basic stance is for mechanics, extended block, Phoenix Wing, etc. HM LB is RNG and low damage to proc the crit, and HM RB requires you to use at least 4 chi before you conflagration flash and gain 3 chi back, for a net of -1 chi. This is counterproductive, to say the least, and you could have used that 4 chi in draw stance to do much more damage.

[Devilwithin]

^This, pretty much.

 

Just get your BSH book for lightning draw and then HM block if your meta is pve only.

HM Z is a must for PvP.

I got the LB skill but imo is not that great even for pvp, unless you have spare points to spec it.

[Asura777]

On 9/27/2016 at 8:29 PM, Avalyn said:

Well half of the reason for this priority is that the skills are cheaper and easier to get, but it still is a good order anyways

 

Lightning Draw > HM block > HM Z*

 

*Only get HM Z if you are serious about PvP. If you are loaded with money (obviously you're not if you're using zen bean HM) and do extremely serious PvE then by all means go for it, but the money for offals can pay for several gear upgrades on its own if you're not max gear already. And by max gear I mean legit super whale level.

 

Zen bean searing slash is useless before elemental damage boosts come in and for anyone else reading you should never use it unless you are too poor for the HM lightning draw and need a temporary substitute. But even right now it is extremely cheap especially right after trove so there is almost no reason not to have it. In PvE even if you are in fire build you should use the lightning pentagram (S2 HM). I literally see people using the Searing Slash just because the rest of their build is fire and they never actually bothered to think about it. In PvP you use the S1 HM.  

 

 

LB RB are trash even in PvE, do not listen to anyone who tells you to get it. You have enough ways to enter draw stance without conflagration flash unless you end up doing a bunch of iframing mechanics in a row which almost never happens. In both lightning build and fire build you want to stay in draw stance as much as possible to do your DPS. Fire build pretty much never runs out of chi so the only time you go to basic stance is for mechanics, extended block, Phoenix Wing, etc. HM LB is RNG and low damage to proc the crit, and HM RB requires you to use at least 4 chi before you conflagration flash and gain 3 chi back, for a net of -1 chi. This is counterproductive, to say the least, and you could have used that 4 chi in draw stance to do much more damage.

Ok so I got the HM Lightning slash, but one more question, why is Stage 5 tier 2 better than tier 3? don't they add up to the same damage? ._. Tier 3 just has a little more on the initial attack and tier 2 has a little more on the zaps. Or am I missing something here.

[Avalyn]

Well take a look at these 2 carefully.

The CC damage is identical and it's impractical to apply CC bonus damage to bosses anyways, so we can ignore that.

 

If we compare max damage:

Lightning Draw: 3,648 + 12,866 = 16,514

Searing Slash: 6,453 + 9,660 = 16,113

 

Min damage just to verify:

Lightning Draw: 3,259 + 11,484 = 14,743

Searing Slash: 5,762 + 8,623 = 14,385

 

 

The only time Searing Slash is actually better, even on fights where you CC a lot eg. Junghado, is if you don't think you can keep the boss in the pentagram for 8 seconds.

 

The difference is not that large, however the gap only increases as you get more AP and it's enough to definitively say that Searing Slash is a waste of your beans for now unless you are too poor for HM Lightning Draw. I do a ton of PvP and have no shortage of beans but you can see I never bought the searing slash because it's just pointless.

 

 

 

 

 

[Enoll]

If you are pvping only -> Light draw -> HM Z -> shield

[Lee Ryu]

The actual order for pvp is : HM Z > HM Block > Lightning Draw

Because the first two bring more to a 1v1 but the costs are also higher.